---
title: "Discussion on \"I'm Building An AI Agent. Except I'm Not. And Neither Are Most Of Them.\" | Hashnode"
description: "Discussion on \"I'm Building An AI Agent. Except I'm Not. And Neither Are Most Of Them.\". Most products marketed as AI Agents are just if/else logic with an LLM on top. I build one myself. Here's the honest case nobody is making."
url: "https://hashnode.com/posts/i-m-building-an-ai-agent-except-i-m-not-and-neither-are-most-of-them/6a4e4310037de99e932cac70"
---

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# [I'm Building An AI Agent. Except I'm Not. And Neither Are Most Of Them.](https://rubenarevalo.hashnode.dev/i-m-building-an-ai-agent-except-i-m-not-and-neither-are-most-of-them?utm_source=hashnode&utm_medium=feed)

Most products marketed as AI Agents are just if/else logic with an LLM on top. I build one myself. Here's the honest case nobody is making.

Jul 8 · 8 min read · rubenarevalo.hashnode.dev  
Updated Oct 10  
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-   [#ai](https://hashnode.com/tag/ai)
-   [#ai-agents](https://hashnode.com/tag/ai-agents)
-   [#software-development](https://hashnode.com/tag/software-development)
-   [#software-engineering](https://hashnode.com/tag/software-engineering)

## Written by

[Ruben Arevalo](https://hashnode.com/@rchrisarevalo)

@rchrisarevalo · McAllen, Texas, United States

  
[View profile](https://hashnode.com/@rchrisarevalo)

Building AI-powered apps for RGV and Texas businesses. Founder of Ruben Arevalo AI & Software Studio.

Full stack software engineer and AI developer from McAllen, Texas. I build AI-powered web apps using Next.js, TypeScript, and Firebase. Founder of Ruben Arevalo AI & Software Studio. Writing about AI integrations, development insights, and products shipped around the RGV and Texas.

## Responses 2

Markdown supported · ⌘↵ to post

[Kartik N V J K](https://hashnode.com/@kartik-nvj)

[Jul 8](https://hashnode.com/posts/i-m-building-an-ai-agent-except-i-m-not-and-neither-are-most-of-them/6a4e4310037de99e932cac70/comment/6a4e867063ea2186b13aca14)

I respect the honesty of admitting B.E.N.N.Y. is mostly if-else logic on top of an LLM layer, because that describes most of what ships as an "agent" right now. The line I would draw is autonomy over control flow: if the branching lives in your code rather than in the model's decisions, it is orchestration, which is often the safer choice anyway. Given your human-review step before a lead is submitted, do you actually want B.E.N.N.Y. choosing the next action on its own, or is the deterministic path exactly what a business-critical flow needs?

[Ruben Arevalo](https://hashnode.com/@rchrisarevalo)

[Jul 11](https://hashnode.com/posts/i-m-building-an-ai-agent-except-i-m-not-and-neither-are-most-of-them/6a4e4310037de99e932cac70/comment/6a4e867063ea2186b13aca14#reply-6a5203ae189fd73dd7a8ac37)

Hi Kartik! For B.E.N.N.Y. I would apply a deterministic approach in this case. I don't want it to make decisions to qualify leads on its own because the last thing I want are false positives, false negatives, etc. Even though I heavily emphasize the importance of human-in-the-loop (HITL) architecture, I am open to exploring more automation and agentic behavior of other aspects of B.E.N.N.Y., such as the timesheet monitoring feature I mentioned in the article, so that it can catch irregularities or anomalies that a human wouldn't normally catch before turning it over to them.